Logic by Machine

Discusses the computer revolution and the relationship between man and machine. Explains how the computer can process millions of bits of data in seconds and can handle as many arithmetic figures in one minute as a man can handle in a lifetime.

Reviews

This film was made in the early '60s by KQED-TV, the San Francisco educational television station for NET--National Educational Television (NET), the forerunner of PBS. It explains the basics of computers at a time when computers occupied large rooms and output was printed on wide paper, not displayed on a screen. The experts, from Bell Labs and Columbia Univ., are halting and poor speakers---they won't make you forget Carl Sagan or Neil DeGrasse Tyson! The film is at great pains to make it clear that computers don't "think"; they merely execute instructions programmed by humans. At the time, there was much fear that computers would "take over" and people would somehow lose control of them. One of the experts early in the film says that computing had advanced so quickly and its costs dropped so dramatically, that if home-building followed the same trajectory, a house
would cost $60!!! When you consider that the computers shown probably were less powerful than
a $100 cell phone of today, the truth of his observation, made 50 years ago, is evident.

Reviewer:Spuzz -
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June 23, 2012 Subject:
The machines are so small, they can fit in one room!

There's all sorts of things happening in this movie. Logic By Machine explains of how computers are making everything easier.While looking at footage of old computers at work is fascinating, Logic By Machines is terribly slowed down by the blowhard mathematicians that pop in from time to time and chime in on mathematical theories involving computers.
Also what I find interesting is IBM's insistence of keeping the animation as sparse as possible, although not made by the Eames (thank goodness!) the style is pretty much the same.
All in all, keep your fast forward button handly.